Editing the Second Amendment Out of Existence

As the war over Americans’ right to bear arms persists, the establishment media has clearly picked its side, choosing to ally itself with the left and become a platform for excessive gun control legislation.

Don’t think so? Just turn on CNN and watch Piers Morgan launch ad hominem attacks against guests who defend the Second Amendment on his show. Flip over to MSNBC and you’ll be just in time to see doctored footage portraying gun rights advocates as hecklers. See it now?

The media’s bullying and misrepresentation of the facts are crucial tactics of its attack strategy. While both are serious breaches of journalistic ethics, the latter technique of picking and choosing what to show to the American people is particularly irresponsible because it establishes a false context and forces it upon innocent viewers. And this continues to happen without repercussion. 

In an interview with Good Morning America on Tuesday, Michelle Obama falsely claimed that a 15-year-old Chicago girl named Hadiya Pendleton, who was killed just a few days after performing with the King College Prep High School band at President Obama’s inauguration, was shot because “some kids had some automatic weapons they didn’t need.” The truth of the matter, as reported by the Associated Press, was that her shooter used a handgun. Instead of televising the mistake, Good Morning America edited out Mrs. Obama’s slip, sticking to the excuse that the decision was made to deal with time constraints.

Here is what GMA aired:

“She was standing out in a park with her friends in a neighborhood blocks away from where my kids grow – grew – up, where our house is. And she was caught in the line of fire—I just don’t want to keep disappointing our kids in this country. I want them to know that we put them first.”

This is what Mrs. Obama actually said:

“She was standing out in a park with her friends in a neighborhood blocks away from where kids…grew up, where our house is. She had just taken a chemistry test. And she was caught in the line of fire because some kids had some automatic weapons they didn’t need. I just don’t want to keep disappointing our kids in this country. I want them to know that we put them first.”

It could be entirely possible that Mrs. Obama honestly misspoke and that she did not intend to mislead. But we should all know better than to believe that ABC edited out a key factual error simply because it was pressed for time. This was not an edit made for the sake of concision but a deliberate attempt to keep the viewers at home from hearing what they apparently weren’t supposed to hear.

So, what was the real reasoning behind the edit? Was it to save the President’s wife from humiliation? Maybe. But perhaps it was because Mrs. Obama’s act of crying wolf, or in this case automatic weapons, would be damaging to the proposed gun control legislation that many members of the leftist media have staunchly stood behind.

Whatever the case, it is not altogether unreasonable to suspect foul play from the media. It has lost the American public’s trust because of the countless times it has been caught red-handed spreading misinformation. The manipulation of just a few seconds of an interview is the leftist outlets’ way of shooting down any and all who disagree with its progressive agenda. In the war against guns, the media certainly isn’t afraid to pull the trigger.